Went and did a little digging in an old river and found some interesting looking rocks with what looks like Quartz and Pyrite. Anyone know what I may be looking at? There were some good chest sized rocks with the same makeup as well.
Dunno where your prospecting in ct but ive heard that the housatonic river has had a history of gold bein found. As well as a few small creeks. Farmington river mid- far noth has small amounts of gold in it. Just takes alot of material to find anything significant from what ive heard, or gathered.. still plenty of left out there to be found tho! Id be interested in what this ore is composed of tho fersure. Has some nice color in it. Cheers
And the Mortar & Pestle are so EZ to make ! Use Black iron for the parts of at-least a 3 X 4 inch pipe nipple and a black iron pipe cap ! I used (EZ quick build) threaded fitting's BUT the weld together parts are also good ! Plus I've made them of a bigger diameter and longer (out of heavier steel ) also with a steel rod several feet long for a small rock crusher to bust up the larger piece's ! Good Luck on your process !
I had similar questions when getting started. In short you can't tell from a photo or just by looking unless you have really rich visible gold. You need to crush it really fine and pan it or get it assayed to know if your ore has gold in it.
I get what you are saying about using a pipe nipple and cap, but what do you guys use to crush your material down in? Do you have some kind of large container that you crush the stones in?
I imagine it will need to be made of metal or something to be able to break down the material without the container itself being destroyed in the crushing process?
Beach High Banker, Sweep Jig, Whippet Dry Washer, Lobo ST, 1/2 width 2 tray Gold Cube, numerous pans, rocker box, and home made fluid bed and stream sluices.
You can make a simple crusher by welding a short section of 3" or so pipe to a piece of plate steel. Put rocks in pipe and pound them to powder with a capped section of pipe or whatever. Screen off the larger leftover pieces of rock and place back in pipe and pound to desired consistency.
Was actually considering just that! I was going to build it out of a 3" Galvanized pipe nipple, but after I priced everything up to build it the way I want (Which would have been by no means high quality) I would only be saving like $12, so I am just going to buck up and drop the $80 on a professionally made one. An investment that should last me a lifetime!
The one I am looking at comes with an unpainted finish, and painted, I am guessing I will want to go with the unpainted so I don't have tons of paint chips mixed in with the cons?
Here is a portable sampling crusher that I made from 2" pipe for the ramrod and 3" and 4" exhaust tubing and 1/4" steel plate for the bottoms of the chambers.
The ramrod pipe has a one inch by three foot long rebar inside which adds weight and creates a double impact ......
Then for more production at home I made these chain flail crushers ................
Before and................................................... after crushing, first pass.